CHRISTIAN CHURCHES are being sold by the hundreds in the UK and being made over into Hindu temples, mandiras and Sikh gurudwaras... Methodism is waning at a fast rate. Today, only 7,000 Methodist churches remain out of 14,200 in 1932.

CHRISTIAN CHURCHES are being sold by the hundreds in the UK and being made over into Hindu temples, mandiras and Sikh gurudwaras... Methodism is waning at a fast rate. Today, only 7,000 Methodist churches remain out of 14,200 in 1932.

"John Wesley... wrote the following account of the 1st society called Methodist: 'In Nov., 1729, 4 young gentlemen of Oxford... began... reading chiefly the Greek Testament... The next year, two or three of Mr. Wesley's pupils desired the liberty of meeting with them; and afterwards one of Mr. Charles Wesley's pupils... "

"John Wesley... wrote the following account of the 1st society called Methodist: 'In Nov., 1729, 4 young gentlemen of Oxford... began... reading chiefly the Greek Testament... The next year, two or three of Mr. Wesley's pupils desired the liberty of meeting with them; and afterwards one of Mr. Charles Wesley's pupils... "

"John Wesley... wrote the following account of the 1st society called Methodist: 'In Nov., 1729, 4 young gentlemen of Oxford... began... reading chiefly the Greek Testament... The next year, two or three of Mr. Wesley's pupils desired the liberty of meeting with them; and afterwards one of Mr. Charles Wesley's pupils... It was in 1732 that Mr. Ingham... & Mr. Broughton... were added... To these, in April, was joined Mr. Clayton... with 2 or 3 of his pupils... [&] Mr. James Hervey... and afterwards Mr. Whitefield' "

"Religions: In 1985 an estimated 16% of the adult population were members of Christian churches.... Other Protestant churches, including the Methodists (with nearly 500,000 adult members) and the Baptists (226,000). "

"Location: United Kingdom (Wales); Population: 2.8 million "; "The Methodism of evangelist John Wesley had a strong influence on the Welsh beginning in the 18th century, and most Welsh Christians today are Methodists (also called Nonconformists). "

"Between 1773 and 1784... the number of members [increased] from 1,160 to 14,988. Instead of one in every 2,050 persons in America being a Methodist, the ratio had decreased by 1784 to one in every 213. "

Methodist

USA

4,921

-

-

-

1773

Marty, Martin E. Pilgrims in Their Own Land: 500 Years of Religion in America. Boston: Little, Brown and Co. (1984); pg. 171.

"Before the [Revolutionary] war there were only 4,921 Methodists in America; yet at the end of his life Asbury counted 212,000 of them, mostly recent converts. "

"Their mission prospered, and in 1773 the first American Methodist conference was held in Philadelphia, with 10 traveling preachers present. By this time there were 1,160 American Methodists, over half of them in Maryland and Virginia, where the Church of England was strongest. "

"Methodism spread first to Ireland and then to America. In 1766 Philip Embury, a lay preacher from Ireland, came to New York City.... Within ten years after the first Methodist preachers arrived, American Methodism numbered about fifteen thousand members and eighty preachers. "

"in 1776...out of a population of approx. 3.5 million... [affiliated] adherents of religion... closer to 17%. "; "...Methodists accounted from only 2.5% of all religious adherents in the 13 colonies... "

"The Methodists have quite complete and apparently accurate statistics for this period. The 1776 Minutes of the Annual Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church report a total membership of 4,921. If we divide this number by the 65 Methodist congregations reported by Jernegan, we arrive at an average of 75.7 members. "

"Methodists... During the American Revolution, the Methodist societies in the United States broke off from the Church of England and formed a church of their own. On the western frontier, every Methodist minister was a 'circuit-rider,' traveling from place to place, holding services in large tents, preaching to thousands day and night. "

"By 1900, at the end of the period that Marty (1975, p. 82) has called the 'big sleep' in American religious life, the Methodists had grown to 64,894, and by 1806 they numbered 130,570--hardly a 'sleepy' performance, given that the nation's population did not even double during this interval. "

"By the time of Asbury's death, in 1816, Methodism had increased from 10 preachers and 1,160 members in 1773 to 695 preachers and 214,235 members... Now Methodists numbered one in every 39 Americans... Methodism was now established in every state and territory east of the Mississippi except eastern Florida, which as under the control of the Spanish, and Wisconsin... "

Methodist

USA

-

-

2,700units

-

1820

Gaustad, Edwin S. Church and State in America (series: Religion in American Life). New York: Oxford University Press (1999); pg. 48.

Chart: "Number of Churches [in U.S.A.] in 1820 "; "Baptists and Methodists had more churches in 1820 than other Christian denominations. The colonial 'heavyweights,' Congregationalists and Episcopalians (Anglicans), were now outnumbered. "

Carruth, Gorton. The Encyclopedia of American Facts and Dates (10th Edition), HarperCollins Publishers, Inc.: New York (1997); pg. 387.

"A survey of Protestant religious sects in the U.S. at the end of the nineteenth century showed... 6,000,000 Methodists; 5,000,000 Baptists; 1,500,000 Lutherans; 1,500,000 Presbyterians; 350,000 Mormons; and 80,000 Christian Scientists. "

Methodist

USA

5,700,000

-

-

-

1906

Wuthnow, Robert. The Restructuring of American Religion: Society and Faith Since World War II, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press (1988); pg. 21.

"When the Census of Religious Bodies was conducted in 1906, Methodists still ranked first, with 5.7 million members; Baptists came in second, with 5.6 million; Presbyterians ranked third, with 1.8 million; Lutherans, fourth, with 1.5 million... "

Methodist

USA

-

-

40,000units

-

1946

Wuthnow, Robert. The Restructuring of American Religion: Society and Faith Since World War II, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press (1988); pg. 28-29.

"In the Methodist church, things were much the same: only 15,000 of the 40,000 congregations had regular full-time ministers. "

92% of American black Methodists still not affiliated with the merged body [i.e. (United) Methodist Church]. Most of them belong to the African Methodist Episcopal Church, the African Meth. Episc. Zion Ch. or Christian Meth. Episc. Church.

Methodist

USA

11,800,000

7.02%

-

-

1957

Welles, Sam. The World's Great Religions, New York: Time Incorporated (1957); pg. 204-205.

Table: "Christians, Their Practices "; "Methodists: Members in... U.S., 11.8 million adults. There are now 22 groups in U.S. Largest is The Methodist Church; next, African Methodist Episcopal Church. Total U.S. assets, $2.7 billion. "

"The next largest group [in the U.S., after Roman Catholic & Baptist] is the Methodists, with almost 13 million members, less than one-fourth as large as the Roman Catholic Church. "

Methodist

USA

-

5.00%

-

-

1984

Wuthnow, Robert. The Restructuring of American Religion: Society and Faith Since World War II, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press (1988). [Orig. source: a 1984 Gallup survey of the adult population in the U.S., made available to the author.]; pg. 120.

"And the 5 percent that claims involvement in positive thinking seminars equals the proportion of the general public that holds membership in the nation's second largest Protestant denomination (Methodists). "

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